The Black Book
by RavenHeart101
Summary: Seventeen years ago, Selina Kyle stepped onto a toy police officer and changed a little boy's life forever. Years later, the Red Hood is hired to kill a conman and the FBI gets a case involving Bruce Wayne. Or the one in which Neal Caffrey was trained by Catwoman.
1. Chapter 1

The Black Book

By: RavenHeart101

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Summary: Seventeen years ago, Selina Kyle stepped onto a toy police officer and changed a little boy's life forever. Years later, the Red Hood is hired to kill a conman and the FBI gets a case involving Bruce Wayne.

A:N - I'm a terrible writer. Don't read my stuff. I'm crap at updating. I'm crap at writing. My brain comes up with shit crossovers. Kay gonna hide now.

* * *

Selina Kyle wasn't a fan of kids. No, that wasn't quite right, she didn't hate kids, but they were never a part of her future. They never had been part of her future and they never would be part of her future. Her heeled boots clicked against the pavement, echoing down the empty alley way. Her hips swayed and her dark hair brushed down her shoulders. For once, Selina was going out, and not as Catwoman, but as Selina Kyle. Possible girlfriend of Bruce Wayne, not as Batman. Selina smiled indulgently and rubbed her lips together, reveling in the waxy feel of the lipstick rubbing together. Her jacket was tight around the waist, cut at the elbows and showing off her forearms, her pants skinny and black. Silver necklaces were layered around her throat and Selina may or may not have stolen them, may or may not have stolen the whole outfit, but she knew that Bruce would simply shake his head with a fondness that he would try to hide.

They were going, oddly enough, to the circus. Selina wasn't entirely sure why she had let him rope her into the whole thing but Selina didn't get many chances to get dressed up and Bruce knew that she sort of enjoyed being paraded around for all the paparazzi to photograph.

Selina turned a corner, her heels cracking and her purse swinging against her hip bone. Bruce made a promise to her as well, he would not run off as Batman in the middle of their date, and Selina had made a similar promise, of course, after some prodding. Under the yellow lighting from the single street lamp that marked the transition between the "rich Gotham" and the "poor Gotham" Selina stumbled, tripping over something small and delicate, feeling it snap beneath her heel.

She paused, for a moment, to consider that it was something almost deadly stepping there. With the way Gotham went sometimes you could never be too sure that you weren't stepping onto a grenade. "Officer Joe!" A tiny voice said in distress and Selina picked up her foot in surprise.

Selina hesitantly picked up the toe of her boots, her brown eyes narrowing down on a small, plastic, toy police officer. "Oh." She said dimly, noticing from the corner of her eyes a small boy, a little bit shorter than her hip, and with the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

* * *

**17 Years Later. New York.**

Jason Todd was used to warehouse meetings. He was used to the echoing footsteps and the crisscrossed beams that hung from the rafters, and he was used to the disgusting stench they all seemed to hold inside them, permeating the air and trying to suck all the things not touched by pollution out with it. Jason felt at home in the dusty, dark warehouses. They reminded him of Gotham, and even if New York felt awfully like her sometimes during the night in the right parts of the city, there was always something more... hopeful about the city of New York. The "Eternal City" as Tim called it sometimes in that wistful voice of his. The kid would love it here, Jason thought with a sardonic snort. The city would probably love him back.

But Jason wasn't here to muse about warehouses and Gotham and New York and his strange attraction to all things damp and dewy. He was here to get a job done. Or to at the very least be offered a job that paid for once. It would be nice to actually make some money. Sometimes Jason wished he hadn't said no to Bruce's offer to take him back in. But then he remembered that Bruce thought that something was fundamentally broken inside of him, and maybe something was, but there was a part of Jason, no matter how big or small, that really enjoyed that he didn't have something like Batman's morals to hold him back from making actual progress in crime fighting anymore.

The man he was meeting preferred to sit with his face in the dark. Jason would have rolled his eyes and shot him once he got his money if he wasn't sure that the man would have the full force of the police out to get him. And Jason already had that problem, thank you very much, he would hate to add senseless murder to his rap sheet. He was happy enough with mass murdering terrorist with a small conscience, he didn't even want to think about the kind of elation "senseless murderer" would add to his life.

Jason, even if he was a mercenary and a killer, didn't exactly want to become on the same level of insane as the Joker.

The man had graying hair and dark glasses obscuring his eyes. He was well built, strong and stocky, but he favored his left leg over his right and wore a suit that would have cost less than a hand-me-down suit from Dick. Jason figured law enforcement of some sort, or a kicked out of the throne business man. The man held himself with some sort of grace, though, so Jason could give him brownie points for that.

There was a twitch to his smile that seemed familiar but Jason couldn't place it and after a moment of staring just a little bit too long and thinking just a little bit too hard on it, Jason slipped his gun back into its holster at his waist, secured the hood over his face and jumped down from the rafters.

The man jumped at his sudden appearance and swore so loud Jason had to fight back a laugh. He didn't quite have the cackle that Dick had down and he wasn't sure he wanted to. Sometimes that laugh - which only showed up when Dick was being absolutely vindictive - gave Jason the creeps. "Good to see you've arrived." The man recovered with a shake of his shoulders and a straightening of his tie with a bright yellow dot of a mustard stain near the end tucked into his suit coat.

"You're the one who was late." Jason pointed out evenly. The man flinched when Jason waved his hand around to prove his point.

"I had... business to attend to."

The man was too shifty for his own good. Jason felt a twinge of suspicion but shook it off. The guy probably had a 9-5 job that was allowing Jason to make the money he was due to deserve. Who was Jason to complain about having to wait just a little bit longer? It wasn't as though Jason wasn't used to be left to pass the time. He had gone on plenty of stake outs in his time.

"Good for you." Jason walked closer, keeping his arms loose at his sides in case the guy decided to pull something funny. Like try to arrest him. Believe it or not quite a few stupid cops had tried that before.

It hadn't turned out well for them.

"What's my job?" Jason chose to get straight to the point, rather than let the barely masked tension settle in the already darkened air pollution.

"I need someone... taken care of." The words even sounded funny coming from the man's mouth, as though he had never tasted them before in an actual conversation. They were obviously rehearsed and phrased many times over and over again to be as vaguely obvious as possible.

God, Jason really needed to stop letting himself be hired by amateurs. "Like babysat? Cuz that's not part of my pay grid, pal." Jason egged on for the hell of it. Sue him, he was bored. And he liked having a confession on tape so that he didn't seem nearly as narrow minded after he shot the guy (after they paid him, of course. Jason had to make sure he got paid or the whole flying out to New York thing would have been pointless).

The man visibly fumed. "Taken care of. I need him out of my hair."

Him. While Jason wasn't exactly picky on his kill targets he did tend to have more of a reason to not kill someone if they were a woman. Usually, if Jason was sent to kill a woman, it was because she had scorned her ex, or some other stupid bull shit like that. Jason tended to fake killing her just to get paid and then shoot the guy in the most painful place he could think of. Jason's least favorite guys were pedophiles or rapists that tried to hire him to kill their victims. Idiots apparently hadn't gotten the memo that Jason had a type. He killed criminals and only criminals, not innocent people that just walked around in broad daylight.

"What did your hair dresser give you a bad cut?"

Jason snarked and rolled his eyes behind the molten red mask.

"The why doesn't matter." The man snarled, spit flying from the corner of his mouth. Jason narrowed his eyes in disgust.

"The why does matter, actually." Jason preferred to be up front about things, rather than dance around the issue. Get all the information and then do the job. Maybe it was a little bit of training left over from the Batman. "I don't kill innocent people."

"He's not a person." The man growled.

Jason's interest was piqued. "Is he a meta?" Meta humans were another category altogether. Jason got along with many meta-humans, on both sides of the law, left over from his exploits as Robin and his adventures as Red Hood. If the meta hurt someone on purpose, however, Jason wouldn't hesitate to bring him or her down. Things got tricky with Meta's involved, though. With them tended to come the League and with the League was Batman and Nightwing and Red Robin and Robin and everyone that Jason would much rather just avoid except for rare family gatherings, thank-you-very-much.

"He's a thief." The man spit. "And a pain in my ass." He produced a file from the back of his pocket, throwing it onto the floor with a swish of his wrist. Pictures flew out, scattering with paper in the stiff air. "I want him gone. He made one mistake too many and now my daughter is dead."

Jason didn't kneel down to pick up the papers, but he did stomp one large combat boot over a picture that nearly floated away from him. He was sure the back of it would have a very large outline of the soles of his shoes but Jason couldn't find it within himself to care. "Did he kill her?"

"Without even a damn excuse." The man growled and pulled an envelope out of his pocket, his eyes not missing the way Jason's hand floated to his gun and his muscles tensed when he couldn't see where his limb had gone. The man barely contained a smirk. "Half your payment." He held it up as though to show it off. "The rest will be delivered upon the arrival of a body."

Jason nodded and reached out to take the manila envelope. The man just let his fingers graze it before dropping that, too, only the floor. Jason raised an eyebrow, even though the man couldn't see it, and stared him down.

The man didn't say anything else, but his footsteps echoed against the empty hollow room of the warehouse.

When he had fully disappeared (and after ten minutes just to be sure), Jason knelt down to pick up the envelope and folder, moving his foot just an inch to look at the picture.

Sure enough there was his footprint, dark against the pale white of the back of the picture. Jason shook his head and thought through what the man had told him. Whoever this was had killed his daughter (supposedly) and had done so without a second thought (apparently) and was a thief (most likely). Jason would do some investigating of his own before acting, he couldn't be too trigger happy or he could kill someone innocent and then, once again, Batman and the entire force of the Batfamily would be upon him like a rat with cheese.

He opened the file before turning the picture around. The name rang familiar in his mind, but Jason couldn't place it. The file itself was a standard police file, if it wasn't for the black lettering that read FBI in the corner of it. Jason skimmed the details, bond forgery, art theft, money laundering, conterfeiting... the list went on and on for three pages. Nothing to suggest a violent criminal, though. In fact, there was a memo written in by hand (that had been copied, it seemed since Jason couldn't see any indents in the paper. This whole file was probably copied illegally and given to him. This employer had a lot more balls than Jason had originally assumed, it seemed) that went as far as to state that the criminal didn't even like violence.

And then there were three words that stood out like a knife in a gun fight. Confidential Criminal Informant. The guy was a CI for the FBI.

Jason narrowed his eyes and turned to a page with a list of aliases. Maybe one of them would ring a bell. Was the guy ever in Gotham? Maybe Jason and the Bat had run into him and the guy had somehow managed to escape their grip. Sure few people had done it before but some had.

None of the names rang a bell... but Jason could have sworn he knew the person. Could have sworn that the list of crimes were eerily familiar, as though Jason had read through them multiple times before.

If only his mind still wasn't all messed up from dying and coming back again. If only Jason didn't find it hard, sometimes, to focus on something so simple.

A name should be easy to pull up!

Jason growled low in his throat and clenched his fists around the pages before he remembered the picture he had deliberately stepped on.

He turned it over. Blue eyes were the first thing he saw. Brighter than Dick's but familiar in the same way Nightwing's were. Wavy black hair. Devil-may-care smile. Expensive suit and silk tie.

Danny.

The name jumped to his mind and Jason almost froze in shock. Danny? But the name didn't say Daniel. The name at the top of the file said...

No it didn't say Daniel Brooks.

What was it that Bruce had told him about Danny all those years ago when Danny had left? Corrupt cop for a father, drunk hooker for a mother, the kid was lied to his whole life and the only person to tell him the truth without their hands red from guilt was... Selina Kyle. Marshalls. Witness protection.

Gotham.

The FBI had nothing on file for Neal Caffrey before he was 18.

New York.

Daniel's real name had been Neal Bennet. His best friend had been Batman's sidekick.

Shit.

* * *

Neal didn't want to think of what Peter would say to him if he was late to the office when he said he could get there on time himself. He would have sped up his trot a little if he thought it was necessary. Well, he was only a minute late, which was ten minutes earlier than most of the other staff members of the White Collar Division, and he had brought a peace offering of June's Italian Roast with Peter's name on it.

Perhaps he had gotten a little bit too easily distracted by the news and answering his email, Neal thought as he shouldered his way through the clear doors and stopped at his desk to shrug off his jacket and toss off his hat. He sighed at the pile of files waiting for him. He had a feeling that over half of them were mortgage fraud.

He really hated mortgage fraud.

Selina had sent him a message - coded obviously (in legitimate computer code, condensed over and over again and so hard to crack that Neal was pretty sure she had "borrowed" some Wayne Tech in order to complete it to her liking) - asking him to skip out on his anlket for just a few nights and stop back "home". Gotham wasn't home, but he wasn't idiot enough to admit that Neal missed Selina in a way that he missed very few people. And he sort of missed the corruption of the City and the scary things that would go bump in the night.

Neal would have to come up with some very good excuse in order to get a few days off, though, and even if Gotham wasn't very far away Neal would rather stay a night there than have to catch a train or taxi back in time for work the next day. Maybe he would play sick... But no, that was too elementary...

Perhaps he could make a deal with Peter. Do good on all of these mortgage fraud cases with very minimal complaining, stop by and help El with dinner prep, and in return get a few days off from FBI work.

Mozzie would keep an eye on things, make sure the FBI wasn't sniffing around his apartment. Even though Neal was pretty sure that Mozzie would be a little too spiteful if Neal told him who would be skipping out to see.

But he couldn't just say no to Selina. She was like a mother to him, after all, and she had trained him. The least he could do was visit her every now and then. And visiting her usually meant seeing Alfred and Barbara and Tim. Dick was too busy in Bludhaven but maybe even he would be able to stop by for a Danny Brooks and Alfred Pennyworth dinner party. He would definitely be able to convince stoic mister Bruce Wayne to show up.

It could be like a regular old family dinner. Neal hadn't had many of those growing up but he did remember the dinners he shared at Wayne Manor to be rather... lovely if he was in the right mind to admit it.

He sighed and straightened up, squaring his shoulders and waving up at Peter as the older man glanced down at him. Peter nodded and waved back, his phone to his ear and his lips twitching up in a smile. Either Peter was hot on the case of some unfortunately white collar criminal or he was being ridiculously adorable with El again. Hoping that it was the latter, Neal began the trek upstairs, stopping to leave a steaming cup of coffee on both Diana and Jones' desks (the two of them had been nice enough to save him from desk duty two nights previous and Neal owed them for even going so far as to keep him out of the van).

Lightly, he knocked against the glass doors that opened to Peter's office. His friend (boss, partner, handler, enemy... sometimes the words seemed too poisonous and dark in his mouth and friend seemed so much lighter and more likely to encompass all of those things, if Neal were to be honest about just who his friends actually were) waved him in, his laugh letting Neal know that it was, indeed, Elizabeth on the other line, and not someone from some other division that was as much dedicated to their work that Peter was and made to come in a half an hour earlier than everyone else. "Hon," Peter began with a sly look to Neal that had him curiously worried. Almost nothing good ever came out of that look. "Neal's here," Neal placed the coffee in front of him and Peter took a large gulp before letting out a positively... wrong sounding noise as the liquid hit his taste buds. "And he brought me coffee."

"You're welcome." Neal shuddered in a silent laugh, dropping elegantly down the seat opposite Peter and studying him over his own cup of coffee.

"Wait, wait." Peter said after a moment. "I'll put you on speaker." He pressed the button to do so and placed the phone on the counter top.

"Good morning, Neal." Elizabeth's sweet voice echoed in the office.

"Good morning, Elizabeth." Neal greeted back. In a way, Elizabeth reminded him a lot of the person Selina was when she wasn't robbing buildings and teaching him a life of crime. She was soft, yet strong, heavy in her words, yet understanding in her touch. She was beautiful and elegant and free in a way that Neal didn't see many women as being. If it was another time and another place Neal would have gone as far as to call her maternal, parental, and protectively stern. He had seen Bruce like that with Dick and Jason and Tim every now and again, and Selina was so rarely not a mother figure to him. But she didn't have the same nature as Elizabeth. She was harder, but Neal guessed that was what Gotham did to people. It made them hard.

"I have a question for you." She sounded a little bit too excited to even get out the words and Neal traded an amused look with her husband.

"Your wish is my command."

"I've been asked to plan a gala here for a very important business man and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind being my taste tester for the event?"

"Oh," Neal had almost not expected that. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Elizabeth to tell him that she had a case for them, maybe? Elizabeth so rarely asked favors of him in a way to better her own business. Neal saw no reason to deny her the favor. Maybe it would actually put him in better books for when he asked Peter for those few days off to go visit Selina. "Of course, El. You know you don't have to ask."

"Of course I do, silly. You're not my husband I can't force you into anything." Neal made a face that said, true, and traded a lightly amused look with Peter before Peter took back his phone, switching speaker off and bidding his wife a quick goodbye.

"Did she ask you first?" Neal asked with a small smirk.

"No," Peter shook his head with a tiny laugh. "El won't ask me for anything like that anymore now that we've got you around." Neal tensed just a little bit.

Peter kept doing that.

Almost every time they talked nowadays Peter kept slipping in hints that Neal was in his last year of working as a CI with a leash. Neal knew Peter wanted him to make New York permanent and Neal almost wanted that for himself too, but when Peter pushed like this...

He knew better than to make Peter suspicious of him again, though, the two of them very recently managing to pull their trust back together after the incident with Adler and the treasure and Keller kidnapping El. It was all as though it was a scene from something was very much not Neal's life, but rather the life of Danny.

Neal remembered the kidnapping with vivid detail. He remembered the times he had to switch Danny on and off. He remembered the itch to call Dick and ask for help. But he couldn't allow those two lives to cross. He couldn't allow them too. It was too dangerous for everyone involved.

Lord knows the kid of shit storm that would have been rallied had Peter found out that Neal knew someone like Richard Grayson. A cop and the ward of Bruce Wayne. The questions that would have raised would have been too much and Neal knew Peter too well to think that he would miss out on the implications that Neal was originally from Gotham. So far he had been able to avoid that sort of suspicion altogether. Peter didn't have a clue where Neal was from and he was curious, yes, but Neal had been very careful not to leave hints about where he had grown up, or the people he had grown up with.

He had severed the ties to Danny Brooks very near almost permanently when he had left and the only two that regularly kept contact were Dick and Selina. Neal would send Alfred a Christmas card every year and he tended to receive one back, even if he was increasingly sure that the older man knew exactly where Neal was at all times in his life, even when Neal hadn't known himself. He knew Alfred didn't necessarily approve, but Neal was equally as sure that from the rather tiny pin that Alfred had sent him in his last Christmas letter the year before that he was proud of Neal's... well, his attempt at rehabilitation.

"Who's the gala for?" Neal asked nonchalantly, leaning back in the chair and appreciating the idle chatter for what it was as every other member of the division slowly trickled in.

"This rich socialite." Peter paused as though the name had escaped him. "Bruce Wayne, I think she said."

Bruce Wayne... Neal's breath almost shot out of his lungs in short, painful gasps. He would definitely be able to help out Elizabeth more than the three of them had originally thought, anyway. He may as well be positive, anyway. Or at least as positive as he could be. It wouldn't do to let the negative fear overcome his rational mind. He wouldn't have to go to the gala. He wouldn't have to see Bruce Wayne. And even if they did run into each other it wasn't as though Bruce didn't know how important it was to keep some things, like a secret identity, private. He wouldn't let it slip. Neal could trust him.

"Well if El pulls this off enough to please someone like Bruce Wayne she'll be working for socialites everywhere." Neal stood up and tossed his cup in the trash. The news of Bruce's upcoming arrival was enough of a shock to his system to wake him up without caffeine involved. "I'll be at my desk drowning in mortgage fraud." Neal dismissed himself and pretended to miss the look of concern Peter sent when he noticed Neal's cup wasn't even halfway gone.

Neal made it seem easy to hide who he really was and what he really felt. No one in the office seemed to even notice the slight twitch to his left finger. He sat down and made it seem like restless energy, popping open the middle desk drawer and pulling out the seemingly random business card placed there.

_Clark Kent. The Daily Planet. Reporter. Dial 855-093-0239 Ext. 14. _

Neal twirled it between his fingers, narrowing his eyes at the blank computer screen and running his fingertip over the pin he kept hidden stuck into his suit pocket. The only one to even know it was there was Mozzie. Sarah had found it once, but Neal had shrugged it off as simply something that an old friend had given him and not something that actually had much of a meaning. He dropped the card back into the drawer. Neal shook his head and grabbed at the top file, flipping it open and beginning to work.

He could stress about it plenty later. For now, though, Neal would only gain suspicion by worrying.


	2. Chapter 2

The Black Book

By: RavenHeart101

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Summary: Seventeen years ago, Selina Kyle stepped onto a toy police officer and changed a little boy's life forever. Years later, the Red Hood is hired to kill a conman and the FBI gets a case involving Bruce Wayne. Or the one in which Neal Caffrey was trained by Catwoman.

A: N – Thanks for the positive thoughts peeps. Just another introductory-like chapter. We'll get more into the everyone running into each other bit next part. Perhaps. Who knows.

* * *

Bruce Wayne's office was, for the most part, immaculate. In fact no one would have figured that he was anything other than Gotham's biggest socialite if it wasn't for the pictures he had on his desk of him and his boys. His boys. Wasn't that something to think about? Bruce had never figured he would get the chance to even say that, let alone it be true. But there it was, clear as day. Bruce Wayne was a father.

First and foremost, however, he was something else. He'd been the Batman almost as long as he had been a father and Bruce found it incredibly hard to turn that part of himself off. You don't turn it off sir, Alfred would say, you are the Batman much like you are Bruce Wayne. Almost more of the Bat than the man, most days. Still, Bruce wasn't entirely sure how he was meant to handle this sort of situation as Bruce Wayne. It wasn't every day that someone broke into your gallery and stole not only a priceless work of art but also a flash drive that contained elements of every computer system from the small ones in Wayne Manor to the Justice League.

He stood staring at the empty space on the wall, a thoughtful look on his face, and a frown pulling his lips downward. Bruce had dealt with this sort of thing before that much was true, but that was home. In Gotham. Not in the middle of New York City. It wasn't often that people managed to get a drop on him. And especially not when he had brought Damian and Selina along for the ride.

It was entirely possible, a traitorous part of himself whispered (the Bat, probably. That guy was such an asshole) that Selina was the one that stole it. But no, Bruce told himself, he had been with her all night and Selina hadn't gone anywhere. Bruce would have known if she had... wouldn't he? But Selina was smart and she was clever. She knew how to fool him into thinking that she had gone along with his plan all along. She was a master at misdirection and not really answering the question but making it seem like she had. Bruce himself was a master at that, but up against Selina he felt powerless.

She had been doing this just as long as he had, after all, and Selina had much more practice lying to people's faces than Bruce.

Bruce frowned harder and placed his hands on his hips, pulling off a rather good impression of Clark when he was trying to prove a point. "What's wrong?" Damian poked his head around the corner, a concentrated frown on his own familiar face.

Damian was the only one of his sons that Bruce was actually related to and he looked every bit the part. He had the Wayne jaw and the same intensity that Bruce had shining in his eyes. He preferred to walk around barefoot rather than with shoes or even socks. Bruce remembered when Dick had that habit. It had taken him and Alfred years to break him out of it.

Damian was difficult where the others were easy and he was easy where the others were difficult. All of his sons were different, but Bruce found himself drawing stunning similarities between a young Damian and an older Jason. They both had the same twisted morality, for one. For another they had the same sense of humor. But, if Bruce were to be honest, he had raised all his boys to have a rather... dark humor. "Someone stole our Rembrandt." Bruce hummed, scratching at his chin.

"The one with the-?

"Yes."

Damian came to stand beside him, mirroring his posture. The two of them were quite a sight to see, Bruce was sure, staring at an empty space on a wall in intense concentration. "Are they on the cameras?" Damian questioned in that clipped way of his.

"No." Bruce had already checked hours before. They weren't on the cameras. There weren't any fingerprints, hair follicles, heat signatures, or anything else. In all presence it would seem as though the painting hadn't even been taken. It was confusing and it was impressive. Perhaps he should wake up Selina and see what she thought of it.

Damian made a noise in the back of his throat. He had been doing those a lot - bordering on idolizing Dick more than Bruce thought he would. Dick radiated a natural sense of 'big brother' and he took the role easily with both Jason and Tim, but Jason's death had hit the first Robin hard, and Bruce's on subsequent breakdown had only pushed them farther apart. But Damian had somehow brought them back together again, at least tentatively, and Dick might not had particularly liked Damian at first, but now the two of them were as close as Bruce could have hoped for, and they were a scary force to be reckoned with. Perhaps it was because, for a year or two, Bruce couldn't exactly wear the cape and cowl and Dick had taken his place, but Dick was a natural leader and Damian looked up to that sort of natural talent.

"Should we...?"

"No." Bruce twitched his head to the side and tried to ignore when Damian did the same a moment later. "Go get Selina-" A soft knock on the door pulled both of them out of their thoughts.

Damian was in a defensive posture, as he always was whenever something managed to catch him off guard. Bruce's eye twitched. "That would be the event planner." Dick had suggested the woman, saying that she came from a very important and trusted colleague of his. Not that Dick had many colleagues and Bruce wasn't entirely sure why he had hired her based off that suggestion (for all Bruce knew this woman was suggested by Kid Flash or Roy or Oliver even and then Bruce's party would end up a Queen party rather than a Wayne one and... Bruce didn't want to be quite on the level of playboy that Oliver Queen was). She had seemed nice enough over the phone, though, professional and asked all the right questions. They had a meeting scheduled for early that day to go over some of the details.

Why hadn't Bruce insisted that Alfred come along? Or made Dick or Tim come to do all of this for him? Dick had a knack for organizing these things and since he had done so for Bruce for years straight it was a better option. Or, at least, it was an option that Bruce liked much more than him having to plan the gala.

He opened the door to a beautiful woman, not much younger than Bruce himself. She had curling brown hair that brushed over her shoulders and stunning blue eyes. She was gorgeous, if Bruce were to say so, but she was also taken. On her finger was a glittering wedding ring and a diamond that caught the light. She was married, and by the wear and tear around the band he would say that she had been for the better part of ten years (give or take). This was his event planner. Well she certainly looked impressive up close. "Mrs. Burke?" Bruce asked even though he knew who she was.

"Mister Wayne." Her voice was sweet like honey, and triggered a familiarity that only Selina's had done. They sounded a like, but Selina's voice was a bit rougher and little bit deeper than Mrs. Burke's. "It's a pleasure to meet you." She stepped forward to shake his hand. She had a stronger grip than he expected and Bruce remembered what he had read about her in her background check. Husband's an FBI Agent. He would have made sure she had some sort of training.

"You as well." Bruce gestured for her to take a seat. "Forgive my son, Damian hasn't been around many women like yourself." He winked coyly and Mrs. Burke blushed just a little before laughing.

"None of that, Mister Wayne." She shook her head at him. "I'm a married woman."

"Unfortunate."

"Selina's here." Damian pointed out with a raised eyebrow and Bruce copied his expression.

"Don't you have anything better to do other than listen to us party plan, Damian?"

"Oddly enough, no."

"I know you have homework."

"It's too easy." Dick used to have a similar complaint, once he had learned enough English to complain. Bruce had had to bump him up a year in school, and even then he soared through the work with no problem. He should be happy, he supposed, to have raised children who were so bright. Sometimes, though, Bruce found himself wishing that they were all a little bit more normal than they actually were.

"Then you can finish it quickly and bother me some more."

Damian glared before sighing and walking silently over to the door. He gripped the handle before turning back. "Your husband's an FBI agent, Mrs. Burke?" He asked sweetly.

Caught off guard, she stumbled around an answer. "Uhm, yes. He is." She looked at Bruce in question and Bruce merely shrugged, unsure where Damian was going with the question himself.

"Perhaps you should ask for his help," Damian pointed to Bruce with a small smirk. Sometimes Bruce really remembered just who Damian's mother was. Sometimes it was simply too obvious for him to ignore it. "On our missing items."

* * *

"Again." Selina commanded from her chair by the window. Danny was getting frustrated, she could tell, sticking his hand in the man's jacket and pulling it back out again quickly, but not quickly enough. The bells rang every time. Whenever he thought he had it, he was definitely wrong. It wasn't the getting in that was the problem anymore, it was the getting out. "Danny, I said again."

He groaned and quickly, but with ease, slid his hand into the pocket, brushing his fingertips over the twenty Selina had hidden in there. He closed his fingers over them in a practiced gesture and tugged them out, swiftly and with care.

The flowing air hit his finger tips and he kept his eyes closed as the breeze filtered in through the open window. He was afraid to look.

"Danny." Selina said with pride in her voice. Danny didn't hear pride very often. "Danny you did it!" Squinting open one eye, Danny looked at the twenty dollar bill in amazement.

Selina swept off the chair and over to him, picking him up by his skinny middle and spinning him in circles. She laughed, her dark hair tickling his nose and Danny laughed too. "I'm so proud of you, Dan." She gushed when she put him back on the ground.

"Does that mean I can help you now?" Danny had been training with her for the better part of a year. He had been hoping ever since she picked him up off the street that she would eventually let him run cons with her. She said he wasn't good enough yet, especially since he had yet to master picking pockets without alerting the person to what he was doing. He was good at being a beggar, she said, but not good at being a survivor. Not yet, anyway. Not until she taught him.

It hadn't taken a lot of convincing on his part to have her take him in. One night she was walking him back home since he had gotten lost and meeting his mother, and then next she showed right back up on his windowsill, dressed in a skin tight black cat suit, and offering him up a deal. She helped him steal some food from this rich guy's big mansion and they had sat on his roof, having a grand picnic. Danny never asked her what happened during that night to have her decide to take him under her paw (so to speak, because cats didn't have wings) but something had shaken her up enough to make her reconsider her whole take on kids in general.

"Not yet," She poked his nose with the pad of her finger. "You've done it once. Now do it again." Selina reached into her pocket and pulled out two twenties this time, dropping it into the pocket and standing back.

* * *

Neal shouldn't have been surprised when Peter ushered him up to his office with the double finger point the next day. Really he shouldn't have been surprised that someone had stolen a painting off of Bruce Wayne (or that someone had attempted to, anyway). But he was more than a little bit impressed. Neal could easily admit that much.

The thief was remarkably skilled. They obviously knew what they were looking for and they had left no trail behind. Bruce Wayne couldn't very well become the Bat without causing a scene, so he would have to play in the background for this one. Neal knew how aggravating that would be for someone like him.

He twirled the office chair a bit; Peter's voice a dull ringing in the background of the conference room where he briefed the team. Never in Neal's life had he thought that he would be sitting where he was, surrounded by FBI agents almost willingly. Dick had always preferred this life for him over the one that Neal usually lead, but that was Dick and he was scarily optimistic for someone who had grown up in Gotham.

The thief was smart, that much Neal could notice, and they pulled the whole heist off with an ease that Neal wouldn't usually associate with people robbing from Bruce Wayne. It was possible, unfortunately, that it was pulled off by Selina. But Neal had seen the list of people Bruce Wayne ruled out and she was there, on that list. Neal knew she would be the number one suspect anyway. After all, she was the infamous Catwoman and she was traveling with Bruce Wayne for the gala.

They didn't leave any prints, and, obviously, they left nothing else behind for the World's Greatest Detective to track down. But art crimes and heists weren't exactly Bruce's area of expertise and they were Neal's. He could think like a criminal because he was a criminal. That was why he was so valuable to the FBI (Peter would say it was also because he was smart and because he was good at his job now, but Neal knew what it really was. He was a criminal with contacts and open aliases. They kept him around because if they didn't he would resort to the same old stuff that got him locked up the first time.).

"Any thoughts?" Peter finished the briefing, which he had already given Neal when they walked into work together that morning, looking out at his team. Peter always loved a good puzzle, and Neal knew that this would probably turn out to be quite the puzzle.

"The guy's smart," Jones observed, flipping through the file himself to Neal's right. "Like super smart. Left nothing behind."

"Everyone trips up sometime." Peter advised.

"There's been similar break ins in other cities." Diana said. Neal's ears perked up at that, as did everyone else's at the table. "They're calling the guy the Ghost, because there's been no sight or evidence of him even being there. They always steal something more valuable than a painting, though."

Peter rushed over to his computer. "How did you get this, Diana?"

"A friend out in Bludhaven sent it over, apparently this guy's on their vigilante's watch list." The team chuckled and Neal almost stood up and walked out right there. They weren't laughing at Dick, no, but the existence of vigilantes was a sore subject for most law enforcement officers. And the fact that New York had yet to really need one of their own made most New York Law Enforcement ridiculously happy and proud.

Neal figured it would be a good idea to keep his mouth shut about the things he knew and the things he didn't know on that particular subject. "Wayne's girlfriend is Selina Kyle." Jones pointed out.

And there it was. Neal tensed just a little bit, flipped his pen back and forth and leaned back in his chair. He casually observed the Agents surrounding him, taking in Peter's hands on his hips, Diana's quick working fingers, Jones's frown of concentration. This was his team now, not Selina. Him and Selina hadn't been a team in a long time. Old habits, however, were excrutiatingly hard to break. "Paintings aren't her MO." Neal spoke up and cringed at himself. Peter's ears seemed to pick up on that, his partner always looking for ways to solve the ever present puzzle that was Neal Caffrey.

The group of agents turned to face him, and Neal should have congratulated himself on somehow gaining their trust enough to have them be interested in what he was saying. "But the things kept behind the paintings are." Peter corrected, and Neal winced.

Yes, things like computer algorithms that would allow anyone access to Wayne Tech computers (and the Batcave and the Justice League and every other securely installed computer network in the world) was. She would sell that for a lot of money. It would kept up her rent in that amazing apartment for years and then some. They wouldn't have had to have done another job for months.

But Selina hadn't done it. Neal knew all about her deals with Bruce. If they took a trip together there would be no Batman and Catwoman working together. And if they brought the newest little bird for a ride they would definitely not want him to find out all about their... rather odd courting process. Neal couldn't very well tell Peter and the agents though why exactly he believed Selina was innocent of this particular crime, but he could use psychology. "True, but Sel- Miss Kyle already has an in in Wayne Tech, she wouldn't need to steal a flashdrive with tech on it. There are a dozen better ways to rip off Bruce Wayne."

But there were almost no copies of the tech used to make the Justice League's computer systems. It was ridiculously reckless for Bruce to leave that sort of tech behind a painting. He wasn't usually so careless. Actually, Bruce usually didn't leave Gotham, and why he would take something so valuable out of Wayne Manor was curious in general. The painting was one matter - Bruce needed to keep up appearances after all - but the flash drive with that particular bit of information on it was another thing entirely. Neal almost felt bad for the lecture Bruce would be getting from Alfred and Dick and probably Tim about being so reckless.

Then again, it was Neal that advised Bruce on what security measures to take. But he hadn't told him to hide stuff behind valuable paintings. "For all we know," Neal inputted again. "Someone accidentally took the flash drive while stealing the painting."

Peter nodded as if agreeing with him. "How much is the painting worth?"

"Without the ability to crash Gotham's economy?" And crash possibly all of the world's saftey? "The Night's Watch could go for over seven million on the right market."

Jones whistled and Diana's eyes bulged for a moment. Peter didn't look surprised and the rest of the Agents got to work with a different sense of urgency than what they had shown before. "So it's entirely possible that the thief took the painting not knowing that the flash drive was there."

Possible, yes. Probable? Not nearly as much as someone stealing the painting to throw off their trail. And if there were similar heists going on in other cities... well Neal couldn't wait for that backlash.

"So we have three possible motivations." Peter listed, ticking them off on his fingers. "Either it's a serial stealing things from other cities. Diana you're going to contact those cities and see if we can get their files." She nodded and stood up from the table, her dark hair brushing over her forearms before she left the room. "It could be someone trying to collapse Gotham's economy, in which case, Jones, you can work with our tech guys to see what you can uncover." Jones nodded and went to do so, straightening his jacket as he left the room. "And Neal, we're going to go over our third possibility." Neal nodded. The third possibility that whoever it was had meant to steal that particular painting and sell it on the market. Chances were the painting would be sold on the market anyway, but Neal was sure Mozzie would be able to put some feelers out, and Neal still had some contacts that were willing to work with him (though not as Neal Caffrey or Nick Halden but as Danny Brooks, the little boy from Gotham).

He might not have been on the "right" side of the law, but he did owe Bruce Wayne quite a few favors. And this Ghost intrigued him. It wasn't every day that someone got the drop on the Batman, and it wasn't every day that the guy would ask for help. Maybe Damian was good for him.

"The rest of you," Peter continued. "I want you guys to pull together all the evidence you can that something was actually taken. We don't want to rule out the possibility that Wayne simply misplaced his seven million dollar painting."

* * *

Patrol could get terribly boring some nights. Both types of patrol, either in the police car or in the suit. Either way, sometimes Dick missed the overwhelming action that night held in Gotham.

But then Dick remembered why he had left Gotham and it was like a shock of "oh yeah, Bruce is an overbearing ass" that made him remember why he had left the city that drove it's citizens insane. And Bludhaven had grown comfortable over the last few years. It was home, in a way, but Dick had a restless spirit and he preferred to be constantly moving rather than sitting still. Restless energy, Alfred told him, left over from the days at the circus where he was always on the move.

"You've got a call, Nightwing." Dick paused at Barbara's sultry voice in his ear.

"Who is it?" Dick didn't usually get phone calls, unless it was from the station (which was entirely possible). Bruce knew when he was onl patrol and usually didn't call during patrol hours unless it was serious (like with Jason or when he would admit that he maybe needed some backup). An irrational cold fear spread up Dick's back at the thought of something having happened to Tim or, god forbid, Damian on Bruce's watch again. Dick wasn't sure if he would have been able to allow anyone else to take the title of Robin ever again. His title. The mantle he had created.

The guilt he still felt over Jason struck him at the oddest times these days. It would be in the middle of the station, when he was pouring himself coffee. Or it would be when he was sitting at home texting Wally. Or, dare he say it, in the middle of a date with Kori and it would just be like a punch in the stomach and he wouldn't be able to breathe for a moment. Sometimes Dick would call Alfred, sometimes he would go home and curl up on his bed and stare at the framed Flying Grayson's poster, sometimes he would work himself so hard his muscles screamed at him for a rest, and more often than not, Dick would send Danny (no, not Danny. Not anymore. He was Neal now) an email to check in. "Patch them through, Oracle."

Barbara did as she was told and Dick leaned back against the gargoyle. He clenched his fist and told himself that everyone was fine. He would know, he checked before going on patrol. Bruce, Alfred, and Damian were in New York setting up for a Bruce Wayne Gala. Tim was back in Gotham working with Commissioner Gordon on a Poison Ivy case. Dick never really knew where Jason was, but Jason would send up an SOS if he needed help. Barbara was just a city over. Wally was in Central and Roy was in Israel. And Danny was in New York. Everyone was safe and sound. There was nothing for him to worry about.

"Hey." Jason's voice threw Dick off balance and he blinked.

"Hey, Jay." He greeted back slowly.

"I kind of need your help for something." It must be a huge thing, if Jason was coming to him for help. Jason usually enjoyed handling his own problems, and only asked for help when the situation was absolutely dire.

"What's going on?" It was a slow night anyway, and Dick was pretty sure the rumored robbing that was meant to be going down at the bank was just that.

He had time to waste.

"I was hired-"

"I'm not helping you kill someone." Dick cut in aggressively.

He shouldn't have been surprised. Somehow him and Jason still managed to have that tentative trust between them that they had when they were young, but Jason had always had skewed views on right and wrong and Dick wasn't about to enable those views like he had when Jason was Robin. It was wrong then, it was wrong now.

Jason growled in his ear. "I'm not going to kill this guy." He reassured with annoyance.

"Then why do you need my help?"

"He's a crook. A thief. Someone's saying he killed their daughter. It doesn't pan out."

"You know how to investigate, Jay."

"Listen, I thought you'd like to know that your best pal has a price tag slapped to his head. A pretty nice looking price tag. And not everyone's going to have as much of a conscience as me."

Jason's voice cut off with the connection and Dick swore under his breath for two different reasons. One, he had just managed to single-handedly screw up with Jason (again). Two, his best pal who happened to be a crook wasn't Wally or Roy or Barbara. It was Danny. And if someone was out to get Danny they were in for a very long, tiring chase.

But Dick didn't have the sort of faith in Danny's running ever since the U-Boat treasure. Danny had put down roots in New York, he had a steady job with the FBI that he actually seemed to like, and he had allowed himself to get close to people. Dick had worked hard to be one of the few Danny trusted. Worry crept up his spine. "Oracle."

"Yeah?"

"Can you move over my flight to New York? Make it for tomorrow morning."


End file.
